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Markets' May Ends Lower; CRM, CRWD, JWM Report

Markets performed rather poorly on the final trading session for the month of May, where only the Nasdaq held strong, the S&P 500 was flat, and the Dow and small-cap Russell 2000 finished the month in the red. For the session, the Dow made it seven down days in the past eight: -132 points, -0.40%. The S&P and Nasdaq slid more or less in tandem, -0.61% and -0.63%, respectively, and closed near session lows. The Russell finished down an even -1.00%.

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data for April came out this morning, pointing to growth in job openings when these had been dwindling over the past few months. A headline of 10.1 million job openings breaks the string of three straight down months from December’s 11.2 million, and off the 11.7 million cycle highs we saw in April of 2022.

The Quit Rate has declined to roughly pre-pandemic levels, 3.8 million, while hires remained steady month over month at 6.1 million — a 3.9% rate. We’ll see from tomorrow’s private-sector payrolls at ADP ADP and Friday’s nonfarm jobs figures from the U.S. government a better look at the domestic labor market, but today’s JOLTS numbers would suggest we’re still hotter than we’d expected to be by this point.

Salesforce.com CRM put up characteristically strong Q1 numbers after today’s close, earnings $1.69 per share on $8.25 billion in quarterly sales, outpacing the $1.61 per share (and 98 cents in the year-ago quarter) on $8.17 billion in revenues expected. The company also bumped up guidance for the current quarter while reaffirming for the full year. Perhaps it is this last that is sending shares -4% in late trading; CRM had gained nearly +12% over the past month, +65% year to date.

CrowdStrike CRWD, which also outperformed expectations in its Q1 report this afternoon — earnings of 57 cents per share beat the Zacks consensus by 7 cents, while sales of $693 million easily zoomed past the $677 million estimate — but that stock is trading down more than -10% in the late session. Guidance for Q2 was also good, but perhaps not as great as the street was expecting: CRWD shares had been up +35% in the past month alone.

Higher-end retailer Nordstrom JWN swung to a positive on its bottom line in its Q1 report this afternoon: earnings of +$0.07 per share blasted the -$0.12 expected (and -$0.06 from the year-ago quarter) on $3.18 billion in quarterly revenues, topping the Zacks consensus by $70 million. Nordstrom Rack performed well in the quarter, and shares are ramping up +10% in after-market activity, now swinging to positive gains year to date.

Specialty retailer Chewy CHWY also swung to a quarterly profit on earnings: +$0.05 per share took out the -$0.03 anticipated, on $2.78 billion in revenues which bettered the $2.73 billion expected. Current quarter guidance was lifted as full-year expectations remained in line. Net sales are now up +14.7% year over year, and the stock — which is still down year to date — has now jumped nearly +14% on this earnings release.

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